Discovering the real Sandy Irvine

However, it was his athletic prowess and technical knowledge that caught the attention of the Everest committee selectors. These were establishment men who formed the Mount Everest Committee, formed by the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society to co-ordinate and finance the 1921 British reconnaissance expedition to Mount Everest and subsequent attempts to climb the mountain. It was presided over by the mustachioed and famous discoverer of Tibet, Sir Francis Younghusband.

“He (Irvine) was an exceptionally good rower,” Summers says. “He rowed in the Oxford Boat Races at Cambridge in 1922 and 1923, which Oxford won, and was ‘as strong as a horse,’ as described by Edward Norton, who was the leader of the expedition in 1924. In terms of strength, he was very powerful.

He was just under 6ft and weighed around 11 and a half stone. And it was this silhouette that first caught the attention of mountaineer Odell, who noticed it while preparing for the Putney Regatta in early 1923. “Odell was sent to Putney to find two fit young men to go on the Arctic Expedition trip to Spitsbergen,” Summers says.

Irvine had very little mountain climbing experience, but he distinguished himself on the expedition, a 30-day east-west crossing of an Arctic island – and not just in physical endurance. “Odell was truly impressed by Sandy’s physical and mental strength. He didn’t mind any of the inconveniences of being in the high Arctic, as well as his ability to fix anything that broke.

Free pairing

It was these technical skills that proved so useful on Everest, Gillman says. “He was very talented technically. He could do everything Mallory couldn’t.

Mallory, despite being the most talented rock climber of his generation, was famous for the hopelessness of his equipment. For example, using a Primus stove – an essential piece of equipment for such expeditions – was beyond his capabilities.

“It was a very nice, complementary combination,” Gillman says, adding that Irvine was particularly good “with oxygen.” Irvine’s drawings of oxygen flow meters caught the committee’s attention even before he was elected. For the needs of the expedition, he designed a pressure kettle and commissioned its construction to a company from Birmingham. He also outlined the light ice ax he would need. “He was very practical,” Summers says.

“The great thing he did was clear up the clutter of oxygen equipment, simplify it and take the burden off it,” Gillman adds. This proved to be one of the key factors that convinced Mallory to use oxygen during the expedition.

But while the partnership was harmonious, it was also unusual. Mallory, like many other members of the expedition, was a veteran of World War I, where he served as an artillery officer. He was lucky to be sent home from the Somme (due to the recurrence of an old climbing injury) and to miss Passchendaele due to a motorcycle accident. (John de Vars Hazard, who in 1924 reached the North Pass, which forms the face of the East Rongbuk Glacier on Everest’s north slope, did so with bleeding wounds from the Somme that wet the tunic of his climbing equipment.)

Irvine, on the other hand, was too young to serve in the war. Still, he clearly felt the presence of battle-hardened people who had become immune to the fear and reality of death on their way to Everest.

When Mallory and Irvine set out in perfect weather from Camp IV on the North Ridge at 25,200 feet (7,681 m) at 8:40 a.m. on June 6, it was the expedition’s third and final attempt at the summit. On June 7, both climbers, using oxygen sets modified by Irvine, entered Camp VI at an elevation of 26,700 feet (8,138 m). The next day, Odell spotted them on the second of three steps, a 30-meter rocky climb, about 250 meters from the summit – but he wasn’t sure exactly.